I distinctly remember first hearing Primus in 1991. That summer, I bought a cassette tape of the soundtrack from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, partly because I liked the movie, but mostly because it had songs by Slaughter, Winger, Kiss, Richie Kotzen, Steve Vai, Faith No More, Megadeth and King's X, all acts I liked to varying degrees at the time. It also had a couple of bands I hadn't heard before, among them a relatively unknown San Francisco trio who actually appeared in the film as one of the entries in the climactic Battle of the Bands. The song, "Tommy the Cat", was buried somewhere in the middle of the album, and when I heard it, I was blown away. I had never heard such virtuosic rock bass playing in my young life, and the band's unique, paradoxical sound of heavy and playful, tightly grooved and loosely sung, dry, humorous, soulful and of bizarre tonality. It was easily the best song on the soundtrack, and I immediately picked up their album, Sailing the Seas of Cheese, from which "Tommy the Cat" was taken. The album was great beginning to end, and I soon got its predecessor, Frizzle Fry and their debut, a live album called Suck on This. I was completely hooked and throughout the 90s, I picked up each album as soon as it was released and witnessed them live twice, once in 1991 in Irvine as an opener for Public Enemy and Anthrax, and again in 1999 in Atlanta on the Ozzfest tour. I can say from first-hand experience that bassist/vocalist Les Claypool is as mind-bogglingly proficient live as he is in the studio.
Primus got their start in the San Francisco bay area at a time when underground metal, particularly in that area, was starting to appear above the surface. Metallica and Exodus were on the rise and with them, the young thrash metal movement. In fact, believe it or not, both Claypool and guitarist Larry LaLonde flipflopped between the fledgling Primus and a local thrash band called Blind Illusion, and both appear on that band's 1988 album The Sane Asylum. LaLonde was even a member of Possessed, often regarded as the first death metal band, and appears on their first three records between 1985 and 1987. And Claypool auditioned to replace the late Cliff Burton in Metallica in 1986. With all this foundation in extreme metal, you might expect a different sound than what you get in Primus. Then again, no one sounds like Primus, and while they're difficult to label, I'd give them credit as an early influence in the experimental-, alternative- and funk-metal subgenres.
Since "Tommy the Cat" was my introduction to Primus, and because it had such an effect on me, I'm including that here for your listening pleasure. Following that is a live recording from 2010 of my daughter Megan's favorite, "Harold of the Rocks", off of their studio debut of 20 years earlier. It goes a bit "free form jazz odyssey" in the middle, but also gives you a chance to hear Ler LaLonde's unique melodic approach and the band's storytelling approach to songwriting, and anyway it's one of my favorites too (although I could probably say that about a good dozen or so).
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